Neville Lederle, the 1963 South Africa Champion driver, has passed away at aged 80.
Lederle was one of the few privateers to score a world championship point in Formula One. This he did in the 1962 South African Greand Prix, driving his 4-cylinder Lotus 21-Climax, when he finished 6th at East London. Graham Hill (BRM) won the world championship that day after Jim Clark’s Lotus 25 had engine trouble late in the race.
Lederle would go on to win the South African Championship a year later, but sadly crashed a Lotus 23-Alfa when training for the 1963 Nine Hour race at Kyalami and was badly injured.
Lederle was later induced by the Scuderia Scribante to return to racing in 1964 (at the wheel of his old car) but it was poorly prepared and he retired soon after to take over his father’s motor business, as Mr. Lederle Snr. had died.
